I’ve been wrong

OK, I admit it. I’ve been wrong a couple of times. Like the time I wrote that years of living with hamsters had taught our cats to round-up but not eat furry little critters.
So, of course, our tom cat brought the mole it caught in the yard into the house. My daughter decided she wanted that mole for a pet. She filled our car top carrier with dirt and watched the dirt digger tunnel to safety under the dirt.

The salivating cats joined her. They moved in close and had their curious cat noses sharply tapped. The cats backed off – until my daughter went to bed. then the tom cat stalked the cage, found an opening and had a might fine mole meal.
So I was wrong about the cat. I can live with one less mole on the property.

I would prefer, however, to have been right the day I told a friend I was not allergic to poison ivy. I dropped by to see her before we left on a family trip to visit relatives in Indiana. She was outside pulling poison ivy off a tree stump. As we talked, I helped her pull out the vines. We both thought we were immune to poison ivy. We both were wrong.
I had washed my hands and arms. They were rash free. Where I pulled my hair back as I worked though was another story. Re welts flared everywhere my hands had touched.

Vanity and make-up went out the window. All the pictures of me from that visit to Indiana are of one red-faced momma.
So I had developed an allergy to poison ivy. I tried to stay away from it. Including the day I took the children for a nature walk around the church. I did not see any poison ivy. I did not touch any plants. I did push my hair back, just once. Two days later, as I was packing for a woman’s retreat, my face broke out.

I pinned my hair away from my face and went to retreat. I tried not to itch as the missionary from Israel gave her glowing report. I lacked her glow, but I was the center of attention. Every woman with a cream, ointment or other magic formula for treating poison ivy wanted to help me. I tried them all, including our family favorite: a solution with tannic acid that dries the skin. Too bad they didn’t give out prizes for the ugliest person to attend that weekend. Ole Prune Face would have won easily.

So I was wrong, I’m not only allergic to poison ivy, I am very allergic.
I have adjusted. When I was invited to join the students on a nature walk the weekend of the Science Symposium in Russellville, I went to the gift shop instead. The weekend my husband discovered poison ivy in the yard and on the neighbors’ adjoining fences, I let him work alone pulling it to protect me from potential peril: After all he was immune to the stuff.

He scrubbed up afterward and doused his arms in alcohol. I gave him a hug to thank him for protecting me.
Two days later, we both broke out.
OK, I was wrong, we both are allergic. Too bad the cat can’t make a meal out of poison ivy like he did the mole. If the cat could, we would be weed free.


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